ALPHABET Art Centre @ The New Museum of Networked Art
is the new name of Cinematheque @ Le Musèe di-vistioniste, launched in 2001 as a forum for streaming media at a time when streaming media in the actual sense did not exist, yet, because the technological conditions, for instance, broad bandwith Internet did not exist, yet. At that time, only FLASH & Shockwave by Macromedia, the famous vector based multimedia software and other plugin based technology (Apple/Quicktime, Real Media) allowed low bandwidth streaming, but meanwhile the technology is obsolete and since some time “Cinematheque” was out of date.
Cinematheque realized until 2010 numerous streaming media projects developed in FLASH & Quicktime, which were available for the users until 2015, when the entire project context of The New Museum of Networked Art was re-structured – but streaming media had become usual meanwhile due to new technologies, so that the actual concept of “Cinematheque” was obsolete, as well.
Only in 2020, “Cinematheque” got a new relevance during the Corona pandemic, when suddenly all cultural institutions which had refused to go online before, saw their future in realising their projects in virtual space.
On occasion of the collaboration of The New Museum of Networked Art with Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles – starting on 18 July 2020 – Cinematheque. now renamed simply to Cinema @ The New Museum of Networked Art, started hosting the 7 streaming video programs to be presented at the Darkroom of Torrance Art Museum (18 July – 20 September 2020).
Now, after 20 September 2020, Cinema is renamed to ALPHABET @ The New Museum of Networked Art, because ALPHABET will be serving from 23 September 2020 on as the audio-visual platform of the museum, hosting 26 spaces for 26 individual program structures.
ALPHABET will promote the already existing and future art film/video collections of The New Museum of Networked Art in the public space of the Internet via curated programs, individual filmic works and their creators, as well as in an excange between virtual and physical space via world-wide networking partners.
Until 31 December 2020, ALPHABET served as the cinema space for NewMediaFest2020, afterwards it is acting as the independent audio-visual event structure of The New Museum of Networked Art.
ALPHABET
directed & curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
The New Museum of Networked Art
contacts – alpha.art.screenings (at) gmail.com
The ALPHA DarkRooms are dedicated to a selection of cooperating institutions and the artvideo programs curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne forming the unity of an artistic context. Some cooperations are/were lasting more than 10 years, other ones were singular manifested in one single event but representing nevertheless milestones in creating a diversity of curatorial/artistic approaches, contexts and concepts.