CD-ROM
The CD-ROM was a relatively popular carrier for interactive artworks in the mid-1990s.
At that time, the world wide web as a platform was not yet capable of providing the rich, immersive, multimedia experience that artists desired. Simultaneously, this period witnessed the proliferation of personal computers that came equipped with CD-r drives, causing CD-ROM art to flourish as a form of creation and distribution.
Artists created very diverse works on CD-ROM, ranging from virtual spaces to game-like experiments, from interactive music environments to literature and hypertext presentations. Within an individual practice CD-ROMs often have a very special place: sometimes they are a unique interactive 'exception' in the career of the artist (Laurie Anderson, Michael Snow), other times they are part of a long series of works in different media (JODI, Antoni Muntadas). There was significant production of artistic CD-ROMs during the 1990s in the US, Canada, Netherlads or the UK. Artists as Valie Export, Chris Marker, The Residents, Zoe Beloff, Simon Biggs, Masaki Fujihata, David Blair, Jim Gasperini & Tennessee R. Dixon, Peter Gabriel, Alain Geronnez, Clive Gillman, Sophie Greenfield & Giles Rollestone, Paul Groot & Jans Possel, Graham Harwood, Bill Seaman, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Troy Innocent, Tamara Laï, George Legrady, Jaime Levy, Marita Liulia, John Maeda, Miroslaw Rogala, Antoine Schmitt & Vincent Epplay, Keith Seward & Eric Swenson (Necro Enema Amalgamated), Alberto Sorbelli, John Thackara, Florian Thalhofer, Luc Courchesne, Morton Subotnick, Linda Dement, Suzanne Treister, Tamás Waliczky, published interactive works on CD-ROM. Multimedia publisher Voyager playing an important role, but there was a vivid scene of experimental small productions or by collectives and institutions including Antirom, ZKM and many others.
Artists and works
Prominent publishers of CD-ROM artworks were Mediamatic (NL) and Voyager (US).
Contact Zones. The Art of CD-ROM by Timothy Murray was a travelling exhibition from 1999 to 2001 in which a large number of works was presented together. The exhibition website still exists and is an excellent record and source for several projects: http://contactzones.cit.cornell.edu/
Notable works are, among others:
- Doors of Perception 1 CD-ROM (1994) by Mediamatic - digital proceedings of the Doors of Perception conference.
- Architectonic Models I-XVI (1994) by Roland Kuit
- Cyberflesh Girlmonster (1995) by Linda Dement
- Amsterdam (1995) by Roland Kuit - Avenue Magazine, uitgave #5 VOL.2 Amsterdam inside out.
- Paris (1996) by Roland Kuit - Orbe Magazine, music machines.
Events
- Welcome to the Future! exhibition, iMAL, Brussels, 2015.
- [1]cd-rom cabinet, by Annet Dekker, Sandra Fauconnier, 2013
- [2] CD-Rom: Burning the Interface exhibition by Mike Leggett & Linda Michael, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), 1996
Project:
Links
