TEKNIKA RADICA is engineering a festival-colloquium of art in technological times titled “Powering Up/Powering Down.” Like a living opera, “Powering Up/Powering Down” assembles more than two dozen groundbreaking visual artists, musicians, writers and cultural critics. Drawn from across the U.S., as well as from Britain, Croatia, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Slovenia, and Turkey, these artists offer three days of public concerts, exhibitions and workshops exploring our interactions with technology in contemporary art and culture. “Powering Up/Powering Down” will take place on the campus of the University of California, San Diego from January 30th to February 1st, 2004.

More than an exchange of ideas that dislocates problematic concepts and conventions, “Powering Up/Powering Down” will create new networks between historically estranged communities, creating the potential for lasting change. Juxtaposing diverse media and approaches, we hope to enable a space for conversation and co-creation between UC campuses, underground arts groups in Southern California and Northern Baja, and an extended international arts community. We aim to create an exchange of economic, technological, and thought resources between the University of California system and the greater local and global arts communities.

“Powering Up/Powering Down” will spotlight cutting-edge approaches to programming and new applications in the arts, as well as innovative approaches to old or found technologies. By creating a platform for artists who see (or hear) beyond limited paradigms, we will open a unique and essential space for dialogue and co-inspiration.

“Powering Up/Powering Down” is sponsored in part by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), and the UC San Diego Department of Music in connection with the departments of Visual Arts, Music, and Literature at UCSD along with the UC Riverside and Los Angeles campuses.