Participating Artists:

Jon Baturin, Jocelyn Robert and Daniel Jolliffe, Simone Jones and Hope Thompson, Canada.

Sophea Lerner, Greg Bourke, Leigh Hobba, Andrew Burrell, Australia.

Sean Kerr and Kim Fogelberg , Virgina King, Yuk King Ta, Alex Monteith, New Zealand.

Project Curator: Nina Czegledy, Canada

Co-curators: Robin Pettard, Australia, and Deborah Lawler-Dormer, New Zealand.

Tour coordination: Jon Baturin, Canada, Michael Edwards, CAST Touring, Australia.

PREMIERE OPENING: NEW ZEALAND

February 8, 2003,

Moving Image Center MIC, Auckland, (New Zealand)

PREMIERE OPENING: AUSTRALIA

June 6, 2003 Contemporary Art Services Tasmania CAST, Hobart,

Prospective venues: Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, PICA, Perth

Institute of Modern Art IMA, Brisbane, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Artspace, Sydney

POINTS OF ENTRY: Future plans.

Completing the New Zealand/ Australian tour, plans are in progress to bring and tour the project in Canada in 2004/2005.

POINTS OF ENTRY, presents for the first time ever a joint new media project, a landmark collaboration between Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. The works to be exhibited address contradictions and diverse possibilities of working with digital and interactive technologies. The installations range from self-standing kinetic sculptures, to sound works and dvd projections to what appears at first to be high speed model cars, but on closer examination are machines that move so slowly they take will decades to move a small distance. A characteristic of all of the works is their physical nature; some are sculptural, while others focus on physical and spatial interaction.

POINTS OF ENTRY, the title of the show, implies options and possibilities for audience engagement with the works. While the concept of interactive art is suggestive of choice and freedom, it is useful to consider the extent of these choices. The question remains: within the digital domain of preconceived computer works, programmed virtual art and interactive sculptures, how much actual freedom, how much control over our choice remains? Each work in the show takes a different approach to these problems, some use simple interactions, or have pre-programmed behaviours, others subvert the conventions of what we term "interactivity". A common approach of the contributing artists is a refusal to allow the technologies to dominate the works. As a result these works are subtle and simple, and aim to create an open-ended dialogue. It should be noted, that this genre of work is often overlooked in the realm of art (and technology), possibly because of their often low-tech and alternative approaches.

POINTS OF ENTRY is in many aspects intended to reflect the "peripheries reinforce the center" philosophy, thus featuring uncommon but complimentary combinations of artists and artworks.

The regional venues, the peripheries as the points of entry on the other side of the Pacific also harmonize with this concept.

Bringing together the works from different countries and varying contexts allows the possibilities for new dialogues to form within the project.

POINTS OF ENTRY the touring of this project has been generously by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Arts and Cultural Industries Promotion, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada.