| | _______ | Ars Electronica 1996 | | | ___ | | "Memesis - The Future Of Evolution" | |_| | |_| | September 2 - 7, 1996 |_____| |____| ______ ______ Prix Ars Electronica 1996 ____ | | ____ Deadline April 30, 1996 ______| |_____ Calling all Friends of Ars Electronica! This year's Ars Electronica Festival has - among other things - new dates. The theme of the 1996 Festival, which runs from 2nd - 7th September in Linz, is "Memesis - the Future of Evolution". Symposia, exhibitions, concerts, events and a wealth of art projects will illuminate the fast-approaching moment in "digital evolution". "Memesis" is concerned with "interactivity" as a key cultural technique, and adresses the question of the evolutionary "fitness" of "memes" - that is, the cognitive behavioural patterns which are propagated via communication, and which find what amounts to an ideal environment in the electronic media. The 1996 Festival week - which in future will always be in autumn - coincides with the opening week of the Ars Electronica Center, which opens its doors on 2 September 1996. The Ars Electronica Center is now co-organiser together with the Upper Austrian Regional Studio of the ORF- (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) - of the Ars Electronica Festival. Both the Ars Electronica Center and the Festival are under new management, with artistic responsibility vested in media artist Gerfried Stocker as the new Managing Director of the Center. Together with Christine Schopf of the ORF, Gerfried Stocker is also responsible for substance and conception of the Ars Electronica Festival. As in previous years, the Prix Ars Electronica, which was first organised in 1987 by the Upper Austrian Regional Studio of the ORF, will again be one of the pillars of the Festival. In fact in 1996 it is to be accorded even greater prominence in the Festival. The Prix Ars Electronica, which this year is funded with a total of approx. US$ 122,600, provides a forum for both the status quo and future developments in what the Festival addresses as "digital evolution". If you would like to receive entry forms for the international competition of computer arts, the Prix Ars Electronica, please contact us under the following numbers: phone: + 43-732-6900-267 fax: + 43-732-712121-2 e-mail: info@aec.at