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Silicon Fen is a three-year programme of digital
art works exploring themes of landscape and technological innovation
in relation to the history and geography of the East Anglian Fenland.
The programme, called Silicon Fen, was named after
the nickname this flat stretch of East Anglia acquired after the
first wave of new technology companies began congregating in the
hinterland of Cambridge.
Silicon Fen by Stephen Hughes |
The Norwich School of Art and Design and Film and
Video Umbrella will be commissioning seven new art works, each of
them produced in partnership with galleries located in or around
the Fenland region.
The three-year programme is launched on Thursday
27 May 2004, with three new online pieces by Stephen Hughes, Susan
Collins and tnwk (Things Not Worth Keeping or cris cheek and Kirsten
Lavers).
The artworks which can be accessed via the , will explore the contemporary
changes in society by contrasting the haunting, empty landscapes
of the Fens with images of a wired-up, networked future generated
by its increasing technological development.
A dyke in Silicon Fen, by Stephen Hughes |
It will compare the new centres of innovation at
the science parks in Cambridgeshire to the technological marvel
of its day - the system of sluices, dykes and ditches, constructed
by Dutch architect Cornelius Vermuyden, to drain and protect the
vast agricultural basin of the Fens.
Silicon Fen explores how this area of East Anglia
is now being bisected by an information infrastructure of high-speed
networks and broadband links that rivals that earlier system of
canals and ditches for ambition, scope and intricacy.
Through the use of digital photography, video,
multimedia installations and websites, the artists can draw parallels
with the past and the future to capture the
many changing facets of this unique part of the world.
Silicon Fen is launched on Thursday 27 May 2004,
at the Norwich School of Art and Design.
Silicon Fen will be on tour
at the King's Lynn Art Centre from 18 September until 30 October,
2004.
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