‘The Australian Centre of Virtual Art (ACVA) was established in Australia in 2007 to help promote the work of selected artists working in digital, hybrid and virtual mediums.’ ( acva.net.au 2010 )
The ACVA’s first exhibition ‘Babelswarm‘ (2008 Nash, Dodds, Clemens), won the Australia Councils inaugural Second Life Artists in Residence aware. (See the project post for more detail on Babel Swarm.)
In 2010 the ACVA will launch ACVALab – an attempt to provide an incubator for emerging practices and practitioner while providing a collective interface for educators, curators and artists to extend and explore the development of virtual art. ACVALab started with a call for artist participants based on the central question; ‘What could a virtual art lab be if it was imagined by artists for artist?’
ACVA also plans to launch a critical journal.
ACVA Labs lists an impressive list of collaborators on the site including;
Coordinators:
Christopher Dodds – Artist and Produce founder of Icon.Inc.
Greg More – Director OOM Creative.
Adam Nash – Artist working in Digital Environments – SIGGRAPH, ISEA, Venic Biennale
Faciltators;
Dr Melinda Rackham – Adjunct Professor RMIT. Founder of – empyre – list/fourm.
Kate Richards – Artist and Lecturer in Convergent Media at UWS.
Guest Presenters:
Dr Justin Clemems: Artist, Lacanian Scholar.
Fee Plumley: ‘Techno Evangelist’ and owner of creative agency ‘the phone book limited‘ – Digital Program manager for the Australia Council for the Arts
Dr Troy Innocent: Senior Lecturer – Department Multimedia and Digital Arts, Monash University Melbourne.
Gillian Raymond: Online Manager for the National Portrait Gallery (Canberra)
The ACVA and ACVALab projects are funded by the Australia Council for the Arts.