An event intended at elaborating on the current situation of media art and providing an open forum for discussions on media art issues and problems, took place on 16-17 Oct. in the Conference “Art, Technology, Society 99”.

The idea for the conference arose from the identified need of discussing the overall status and providing sufficient information on the developments and latest trends of authors and organizations dealing with this art-form. Its major goal was to become a meeting point of colleagues and to overcome the isolation of the small groups through open collaboration. Deciding that the best opportunity for this was provided by a discussion forum at which each of the participants could present their projects and current activities, the organizers also sought for a chance to raise poignant questions regarding shared problems - problems of production of media art works, of technology etc. the 2-day conference featured Bulgarian and foreign participants who presented their works, their organizations, galleries, festivals.

Among them were: Boryana Dragoeva; Daniela Kostova; Georgi Bogdanov/Boris Missirkov; Garry Petlow (UK); Vanya Vulkova/Alexander Kolev; Nikolay Chakurov /Maria Berova; Krassimir Terziev; Petko Dourmana/Lubomir Penov; Dessislava Dimova; Boyan Dobrev; Rene Beekman; Galina Lardeva - Centre for Contemporary Art “Banya Starinna” - Plovdiv”; Stefan Bojkov - Gallery Ted, Varna; Svilen Stefanov - Gallery XXL; Iliana Nedkova, Jivka Valyavicharska, Boris Kostadinov - Video Archeology Festival.

The issues that were discussed were mainly about the extent to which the concept has a leading role in the “technological” art, could one speak of ontology here, is the curator’s role adequate to media arts, what are the opportunities for real-time and space presentations of works conceived and produced within the virtual space, is this art-form a serious one if it is shown in the public and party spaces etc