NEWS

Feb. 25-27^th

- Page for visiting artists was added : “arriving? Read!” (menu item on left)

- The Festival opening event (visiting artists and invitations only) will probably be relocated to the Met Club (Metropolitan Hotel, Sathorn Tai Rd.) – this is not confirmed.

- Due to internal reasons the Conrad 87 had to cancel their hosting of the Festival opening event

Feb. 20-22^th

- Epson Thailand confirmed sponsoring Thailand New Media Art Festival the second year in a row.

- SoftAgent Networks (Austria) confirmed a donation of a range of multimedia for ICECA’s Bangkok-based New Media Art lab. ICECA’s Soft-Lab will serve art productions and maintain open courses for the Thai urban community in the fields of New Media Arts.

- An agreement for international collaboration with “IDEA” (Indian Documentary of Electronic Arts) was reached and a common effort to archive digital material will be initiated soon.

- Culturebase.org has confirmed web hosting for the Festival beyond limitation of disk space.

- Submission deadline due – MAF04 no longer accept additional works to this eyar Festival

In fact most venues were fully booked before the 18^th February 2004, applications arriving later are disregarded

Feb. 7-9^th

- Sony Thailand sponsoring digital equipment for the Festival

- Panasonic Thailand sponsoring digital equipment for the Festival

- The IFA Germany has provided 2 flight tickets for visiting artists from Germany

- Media Shaker has joined the festival with their huge screen covering a whole building at Siam Square in central Bangkok. The over 10 meter LED screen becomes the Festival’s “street venue” for video art screenings daily.

- Fonds BKVB has provided flight and equipment for artist joining the festival

Feb. 5-6^th

- “take-it-card” with an agreement with Alliance Française will print 4000 copies of an invitation card.

- “Art Connection” (Bangkok’s art map) has confirmed to donate its front cover image to the New Media Art Festival.

- Recent talks to Conrad Bangkok seem to yield an additional venue (opening part on the 20^th March, video and net art display on 10 Plasma screens and artist meetings with local audience)

- Recent talks to British Council Thailand seem to yield an additional venue including prints exhibition, video projection and interactive computer art display.

- Metro magazine has given the Festival its front cover page (March edition) and additional 4 pages (containing listings in a catalogue style). Listings in the following categories:

1. generative art

2. installations

3. lectures workshops

4. offline and interactive works

5. video art

6. web / online works

- Note for artists:

· Metro editor writes in an email (6^th Feb): “Francis gave me the descriptions for a lot of works but he fears to be selective. What we've decided on is that the deadline for the descriptions is Feb 10, i.e. any artists that will submit their info later than that will be omitted. We need to do this and we can't extend the deadline, but I think it is the best mode possible. A magazine is a limiting media. I will go through the works that Francis gave me, will cut (descriptions) down to about 200 words each, including the artist's name and country, the name of the work, a link if there is one and the description as well as an image (not for all). Francis will have to do a final selection (for the images to be included) by the 10th once I've sent him the edited texts.

Jan. 28^th

- Goethe Institute Bangkok venues confirmed (Auditorium / Seminar room)

- Alliance Française venues confirmed (Café 1912, Auditorium, Computer section)

- Mr. Günter Herpel (KUNSTPUNKT Berlin) joins as production supervisor

- A schedule page was added

Jan. 26^th

- ftp://maf.culturebase.org was installed to provide a portal for hi-res image submissions for Festival

Print materials, catalogue etc

- Currently over 40 artists were accepted to exhibit interactive works

- METRO: Magazine Bangkok have joined as campaigner for MAF-04

Jan. 22^nd

- Submit technical info Page added

Jan. 21^st

- Submission info page added

- Goethe Institute Bangkok as partner - pending.

- SONY Thailand considering main sponsoring. Decision due 30 Jan. 2004

Jan. 14^th

- Talks to Goethe Institute Bangkok might lead to a satellite event (GI BKK Sathorn Soi 1).

- Danny Recht (IL) joins ICECA as production consultant in Bangkok.

Jan. 12^th

- Over 60 international submissions have been received. Majority from Germany, USA, and Italy. Works also from Singapore, Thailand, Russia, Belgium, Peru and Israel.

- Website update, news page added and other minor changes