ISEA2013 is a mind-changing feast of art and ideas that will introduce new ways of seeing and living the city. This international event will open a whole new world of interactive digital art to Australia by using Sydney as the playground where the public is immersed in ground-breaking creative works in and outside of the gallery. ISEA is one of the most significant international events in the field of electronic art and digital media, attracting global leaders in the field. Presented by ANAT and held alongside Vivid Sydney – a festival of light, music and ideas – ISEA2013 includes an academic conference, public art and thinkers program.

Gavin Artz Chair of the ISEA2013 Organising Committee remarks:

“ Marcus Westbury’s broad, inclusive understanding of culture’s ability to bridge community, creative and commercial aspirations will make this more than an event. ISEA2013 has the potential to transform Australia’s expectations of what a creative community and economy should be.”

Marcus Westbury is a broadcaster, writer, media maker and festival director who has been responsible for some of Australia’s more innovative, unconventional and successful cultural projects and events. He has also worked across a range of media as a writer, producer, director and presenter covering fields as diverse as culture, art, media, urban planning, sport and politics.

Marcus Westbury Comments:

“ISEA2013 is an exciting opportunity for me, for Sydney and for electronic arts in Australia. I look forward to showcasing some of the world’s most interesting, engaging and thought-provoking artists and ideas in Sydney and showing Sydney’s capacity for creativity, innovation, experimentation – and putting on a great event – to the world.”

And

“ISEA2013 will span the bleeding-edge world of experimental electronic arts and connect it to the rapidly evolving electronic creative culture that many of us participate in and all of us are touched by.”

The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) secured ISEA for Australia. ANAT CEO Gavin Artz commented on this momentous opportunity for Australia, saying: “ISEA represents the most important work happening in the world today. It is fundamental to the future of culture, our communities and economies. How the creative practitioners working with science and technology choose to lead our societies will be crucial to our sustainable futures”.

Digital art, once at the margins of public perception, is now interwoven into the fabric of our everyday lives, in our schools and workplaces, in our games, films, fashion, social media and gadgets. ISEA2013: Resistance is Futile will infiltrate Sydney from the margins to the core, through the city’s social, digital and physical infrastructure. ISEA2013 will transform Sydney into a living fluid body of thought, culture, community, industry, science and technology, with no edges and no end. It will simultaneously highlight the pervasive presence of digital culture encompassing our world today and be the line from which we measure the start of a creative culture that encompasses the breadth of human endevour.

ISEA International is an organisation fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among organisations and individuals working with art, science and technology. With an academic conference, accompanied by a program of exhibitions, performances and workshops, ISEA2013 will be an international gathering of leading and emerging thinkers and practitioners and will further reinforce Australia’s and ANAT’s position at the forefront of creative innovation.

ANAT is an international industry leader in the field of creative innovation in science, technology and the arts, leading and supporting creative practitioners pursuing the future through projects in Australia and beyond

ISEA2013 will be held in conjunction with the VIVID Festival in May/June 2013 and co-ordinated by an Organising Committee comprised of representatives from ANAT, College of Fine Arts (UNSW), Australia Council for the Arts, University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney, Experimenta, Events NSW and d/Lux/Media Arts.