Info
4th International Sound Basis Visual Art Festival / New Media Art Biennale
1993, May 5th – 8th
Biennale WRO 93 has been the first WRO festival to take place in May. The cultural section of Gazeta Wyborcza had published a series of articles regarding WRO and the subject of electronic art. The festival programme included a large installation exhibition in the National Museum. Teatr Wspolczesny (the Contemporary Theatre) had provided the main stage for the most of the shows and performances to take place during the festival – among other works, thorough retrospectives of the classics: Bill Viola and Lynn Hershman have been presented.
New personages had appeared on the stage: Istvan Kantor – an experimenter and a performer, co-creator of the world neoism movement; and Zbigniew Karkowski, a composer living in Sweden and Japan known for the interactive sound emission through capturing sudden gestures made in the space of the installation.
Granular Synthesis, a group soon to begin a brilliant international career, had performed for the first time outside of Germany and Austria.
Christine van Assche, a member of WRO 93s international jury and a curator of Centre Georges Pompidou, said in her book published a year after, that WRO was one of the most significant European festivals that featured new ideas important for the development of art.
Tractatus, a video philosophical mantra based on the texts of Ludwig Wittgenstein with music by Tibor Szemzo receives a prize.
A video clip duel between Yach Paszkiewicz and Józef Robakowski which had taken place at night in the festival club set in the in a prop room in the Teatr Wspolczesny ‘s (Contemporary Theatre) basement had become legendary.
Corel Draw! Szkola Polska (Polish School) reminisced the computer workshops conducted during previous editions of WRO. A competition for a computer graphic design prepared using Corel Draw was held as a part of it. The software was a novelty in Poland and the winner of the contest would receive a gold bar as an award.
WRO was the first cultural event in Poland to receive the European Union’s patronage through the Eureka Audiovisuel programme.
For their consistent and continuous promotion of public interest in contemporary art and achievements in art marketing WRO received a Szeleszczace Ucho (Rustling Ear), an award by the public relations department of Gazeta Wyborcza. The WRO festival has also been included in the group of visual arts nominees for the first edition of the Paszport Polityki award.
Invited by Professor Stanislaw Pietraszko, WRO designs a “New Media Art” course programme, which soon became a standing part of the curriculum for the culture studies department of the University of Wroclaw.
Competition & AWARD
COMPETITION
17 works selected from over 500 submissions were presented
JURY
Christine Van Assche (FR)
Miriam Coelho (NL)
Lynn Hershmann (USA)
Zbigniew Benedyktowicz (PL)
Miklos Peternak (Węgry)
1st PRIZE
Tractatus, Peter Forgacs i Tibor Szemzö (Węgry, 1992)
2nd PRIZE (ex equo)
Open up, Volker Schreiner (DE, 1991)
Barricades, Istvan Kantor (CA, 1992)
3rd PRIZE
Ex memoriam, Beriou (FR, 1992)
SPECIAL MENTIONS
Tomasz Wójcik-Waciak (PL)
SPECIAL AWARDS
TVP S.A. Channel 2 Special Award – Tamás Waliczky (HU/DE)
Szeleszczące Ucho – nagroda specjalna ?Gazety Wyborczej? – Takahiko Iimura (JP)