You designed and started the Media Arts program at The Hartford Art School, can you give us a brief background of what the program is about?

Media Arts is a kind of hybrid department which focuses on the inter-relatedness (is this a word?) of video production, digital imaging (including photo), critical theory/visual culture studies, physical computing (the interface between the physical world and computers) and interactivity (be that web based, performance or installation). Since the area of study is relatively new (40 years or so?) our concentration is on contemporary artistic practice.

Is there any sort of philosophy backing the program?

If there is a guiding principle here it's that art making is a process of discovery that is not insular or isolated from contemporary culture; one makes art as a way of knowing the world and finding one's relationship to it while simultaneously reinventing it. The work we seek to generate is engaged in contemporary discourse, is non-commercial and can take just about any form that is appropriate to an IDEA. Yes, CAPS are intentional here.

What is the story behind how it got started?

The history of the department, a long time ago there was film, and there was video, and there was experimental studio, and due to conservative political times, various retirements of faculty members and the impracticality of supporting these independent areas, I thought it best to merge concerns and concentrate our efforts. Video survived and in an attempt to retain some of the curriculum of experimental studio, it became clear that Media Arts was the appropriate term for the department. But now it seems outdated as a term - new media is being used broadly, but Media Arts serves the purpose for the moment.

Recently, I came across The New Media Arts Collaborative online.
Can you tell us more about that and what is happening with it now?

This was a collaborative project I started with composer Ken Steen from Hartt. We were collaborating professionally and we thought this might be a good way to work with groups of students in an informal way across colleges. Informal is really the operative word here. We suggested some project areas and then set it in motion. The main result (which is currently being recycled) was a project called "four word stories" another was "60 seconds". Ken and I are both fans of John Cage, Fluxus and process-oriented works. We used ideas surrounding chance operations and intentionality as organizing principles to generate work. The main thing was that students produced writing, sound and video modules, posted them online and then responded to the work directly with no personal contact, a kind of remote collaboration. This is a model used by many international artists who physically can't be in the same place at the same time. We thought it would be interesting for students to experience this sense of anonymity and use the internet as a kind of repository for their efforts. It was also a way to avoid things that sometimes get in the way of collaboration, namely personality or ego (obstacles like hair style, perfume or body odor, linguistic accents, prejudice, etc.).

You can go online and see this work for yourself. It's all public. The NMC site has evolved into a sort of archive of student works produced in the department in various classes as well.

What projects are you working on in your personal work now? Where are you moving toward with your work?

I am all over the map presently. Reliquary of Labor was performed at the cyberarts festival in Boston on April 28 at Axiom Gallery. Ken and I are working on an opera - a solo female soprano with piano, violin, cello and clarinet accompaniment with multi-channel video, processed synthesized sound and interactive live video. It's based on poems of Denise Levertov. I also have just put together a series called "Still Lifes + Silent Movies" which really are neither, it's a series of videos for installation viewing which challenge traditional notions of these genres. I am also working on digital scans of real-time events, using a flatbed scanner as a tool that fits somewhere between a video camera, still camera and a photocopy machine. I am scanning things like snow falling, rain and bugs at night. Each image is about a ten minute exposure so each image represents time shifting but it seems like a singular photograph, LIQUID is a group show I had last spring at Manchester Community College through May 1st, and then there's nocamera.com, and newmedianewmusicnewengland, like I said I'm all over the map but you can't find me on Google Earth (I don't think anyway).

Any artists that you would recommend we taking a look at in the field of media arts? too many to mention.

The field is exploding. We put together a web page for the freshmen class when we did our department presentation a few weeks ago. There are links to hundreds of artists, enjoy.

Thanks Gene, nice to have you.

Thanks for asking, Ethan. Nice to have you too.

Gene Gort is a visual artist, video producer, media programmer and educator who lives in Avon, Connecticut. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor in Media Arts at Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, a program he designed and directs. He has been twice recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation with nominations in the Film/Video/New Media categories for individual fellowships.