The presentation explains the circumstances of the first encounter with Woody and Steina Vasulka at ZKM in 1996, and how our collaboration began. It will also explain how they were gradually coming back to Europe and Czechoslovakia during the 1990s, and how it could influence their further work.
Pavel Smetana (1960) is a Czech-French artist working on the intersection of art and science, particularly in the field of digital interactive media. In 1998 he founded the International Centre for Art and New Technologies CIANT and later an organization dedicated to research in new technologies, culture, science and art T.S.R.ACT. He is the author of installations such as "Room of Wishes" and "Cyber-portrait of Dorian Gray", which combine new technologies, art, and neuroscience and multimedia performances combining science, contemporary dance, and gaming technologies. 1998-2006 he taught virtual reality and interactive media at the École d'Art in Aix-en-Provence. Since 2018, he teached media theory and culture at Prague College and Prague City University. Between 2000 and 2015 he was the director of the international festival ENTERmultimediale in Prague, focusing on the collaboration between art and science.