InterAccess

InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre is Canada’s first and premier production facility and gallery devoted to new and electronic media arts.

History

In 1983, InterAccess was incorporated as a not-for-profit, artist-run access centre, under the name Toronto Community Videotex. It provided artists’ access to the Telidon system, a precursor of the World Wide Web. The name change to InterAccess in 1987 reflected a new focus on Macintosh graphics, multimedia production and a dial-up artists’ network (much like a Bulletin Board System, or BBS) known as Matrix.

Locations

InterAccess took up residence at 401 Richmond Street West in 1995. The move allowed InterAccess to offer a gallery and production space that greatly expanded its activities beyond simply access to multimedia production. In its new incarnation, InterAccess became Canada’s only gallery and exhibition space devoted exclusively to electronic media art. Facilities focused on electronics, robotics and physical computing. Led by the direction of such media arts visionaries such as Kathleen Pirrie Adams, David Rokeby and Jeff Mann, InterAccess became a one-of-a-kind facility within Canada. By 1999, InterAccess had established itself as a community leader in curating and exhibiting electronic and new media art, as well as in facilitating the development and production of new artworks.

In 2005, InterAccess moved to the current two-floor location at 9 Ossington Avenue — a recently renovated three thousand square feet stand-alone building. The new facility allows for more production space, a surround sound studio, and in the coming years, a machine shop for constructing large-scale physical computing projects and installation. This area on Queen Street West has increased InterAccess’s visibility in the art community, helping to sustain InterAccess as a centre for electronic and new media art.

Director/Curator Dana Samuel was hired in June 2005, and her work on the inaugural curatorial exhibition This must be the place was short-listed for Emerging Curator of the Year at the 2006 Untitled Art Awards in Toronto. Membership has remained an important and driving force behind InterAccess’s mandate and activities, with a prestigious and committed membership including media arts professionals such as Dot Tuer, Vera Frenkel, Norman White, David Rokeby, Johanna Householder, Linda Duvall, Reva Stone and Nina Czegledy, and organizations such as YYZ, New Adventures in Sound Art and Subtle Technologies Festival.

In May 2006, InterAccess received a Canada Council Media Arts Commissioning Grant for The Networked City — a series of five outdoor interactive installations on Yonge Street. By the end of 2006, InterAccess will have published its first catalogue to accompany this special project.

External links

* [http://www.interaccess.org/ Official Site]
* [http://www.parachute.ca/para_para/22/para22_Schilling.html Review of This must be the place]