"Showing Tomorrow's Art Today"
Over the past decades, media art has become a widely noticed artistic discipline. With its diversity and innovative capacity, it constitutes a major contribution to the contemporary cultural landscape.
The original idea for re/act, a festival specifically devoted to presenting students' works, was inspired by the fact that
experimental, innovative art works by students are in most cases still only accessible at the respective academies and not
open to the general public.
re/act showcases these works for a wider audience and offers the artists of tomorrow a platform today. With a comprehensive
program consisting of an exhibition, a symposium, workshops, and a platform for international art institutions of higher education,
re/act is unique.
The Idea
In 2008, re/act, the international student festival for digital media art, will take place for the fourth time. Art and design student from all over the world are given the opportunity to present their works to a wide audience and to make new contacts with a network of curators, cultural policy makers, gallery owners, professors, students, and the media. Altogether, more than 1,000 works from around the world have been submitted, evaluated and nominated in past years.
In the beginning, the majority of submissions came from western European academies and universities; in recent years more and more students from Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America have taken part in the festival.
re/act's success can't just be measured by the number of submissions, but also by the fact that the majority of the winners of the festival's competition have also had considerable international success and established themselves in the art market.
re/act combines art, education and media technology. It is in equal parts a platform and experimentation field for the cultural sector, as well as a litmus test for new developments in science and industry.