Now In its tenth year, NEoN Digital Arts Festival is growing up!
We are excited to announce that in this, Scotland’s Year of Young People, NEoN has turned 10 and is one of 19 organisations to newly join Creative Scotland’s regular funded portfolio of organisations. With three years of support NEoN will continue to deliver Scotland’s only digital arts festival across the city of Dundee.
Contemporary culture is linked to digital technology in profound ways. NEoN (North East of North) is one of Scotland’s leading organisations solely focused on advancing the understanding and accessibility of digital and technology-driven art and provoking questions about how ‘the digital’ is so intrinsically embedded in today’s society. This November will see us deliver our tenth festival, which like the last 9 will be programmed in partnership with organisations and venues across the city including Dundee Contemporary Arts, Leisure and Culture Dundee, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Weave at Abertay, New Media Scotland, Dundee Science Festival, Creative Dundee, Generator Projects, NOMAS projects and more. NEoN invites you to get involved!
NEoN Director Donna Holford Lovell said, “By bringing together emerging talent and well-established artists, NEoN aims to influence and reshape the field of digital arts. We seek to create opportunities for collaboration and spontaneity, and push beyond expectations. NEoN will continue to commission and program world class artists to present contemporary work of the highest quality. We hope that International artists see NEoN as a place to create their best work and emerging artists are enriched by their connection with the programme and other participants in it. We feel brand new with this amazing news and are looking forward to getting to work on delivering the programme!”
With 2018 being designated as Scotland’s Year of Young People, NEoN’s theme is Lifespans and will envision the trajectories of digital natives as well as consider what happens to the life of our digital selves, which may live on beyond our biological selves in unexpected ways. NEoN curators are in conversation with Blast Theory, Heather Dewey Hagborg and Phillip Andrew Lewis, Sistema and many others to realise their work here in Dundee. Full programme details will be announced in the coming months.
Clare Brennan, on the board of NEoN and one its co-founders and curators said, “NEoN will continue to commission and present novel digital experiences including group exhibitions, online works, screenings, our mini symposium, performance nights, workshops, and bring our unique take on music and live experiences to wider audiences. This funding will allow us to strengthen and deepen relationships with artists and organisations – in 2019 we will consider activist strategies and in 2020 new kinds of communities and sharing structures.”
Sarah Cook, curator, said “I am thrilled that NEoN has been recognised by Creative Scotland with this support, it affirms the importance of the Festival and the pop-up programme as a platform for experiencing new art and new ideas in the field of digital creativity. The three year funding allows us to continue our national and international working, and to increase professional development and competency for artists and curators engaging with the digital sector. We look forward to working with AND Festival, Scottish Contemporary Art Network, the Rome Media Art Festival, and past and future digital arts partners in Dundee, London, Durban, and beyond.”
notes:
NEoN’s vision is that contemporary culture is linked to technology in profound ways, and that through a collaborative programme, greater critical understanding and accessibility of digital art can be fostered.
NEoN’s mission is to nurture and present a collaborative programme of digital art that fosters a greater critical understanding of contemporary culture within the context of today’s technology driven society, through an accessible annual festival and pop-up programme.
