LOS ANGELES, CA.- Freewaves unleashes “Too Much Freedom?” its 10th biennial festival of film, video and experimental new media art at Los Angeles venues in November. As a complement to the live festival, Freewaves will also launch a next-generation exhibition space at www.freewaves.org, collecting and redistributing the festival selections for worldwide exposure.

Freewaves will parade 150 international artists’ responses to the question, “Too Much Freedom?” selected by 10 curators from Los Angeles, Argentina, Korea, Egypt, Mexico, South Africa and beyond. The festival events and website will connect new media artists whose work is independently produced, technically and conceptually inventive, and engages with a range of playful to political themes.

The festival’s videos, films and web-based media examine freedom and its conundrums, unpacking assumptions about artistic invention, political intelligence, ethical dilemmas and personal desires.

Freewaves’ executive director, Anne Bray, reflects on the issues raised by media artists in “Too Much Freedom?” and the broader tensions between art, technology, economics and popular culture: “Collectively, the media arts push and pull within dichotomies: Is art hastening the standardization or differentiation of world culture? Is avant garde content or the creative dispersions of art the most interesting front? What are the alternative voices to U.S.-centric concepts and images? How can we initiate cross-cultural conversations in Los Angeles and online?”

“Too Much Freedom” will open on November 3 and 4 in the UCLA Hammer Museum’s central courtyard (the weekend prior to the election), with two vibrating floors of simultaneous projections, works on flat screens and video installations. Viewers can question freedom’s transgressions, surpluses and omissions, as well as confront its opposite: stereotyped or institutionalized control.

See www.freewaves.org for streaming video, and information about participating artists and programs. . .

* At the Hammer Museum, including opening weekend event and videos available in the Video Library and Viewing Room
* At LACE
* On KCET TV
* On video billboards on Sunset Strip and Wilshire Boulevard
* At Pomona College Museum of Art
* At The National Center for the Preservation of Democracy

Process

Freewaves received over 1,500 entries for “Too Much Freedom?” from over 50 countries. Through a new networking process, Freewaves’ international curatorial team reviewed and selected works online. The web-based process also allowed the curators to discuss entries from their respective locations with the others via the internet.

Curators

Rodrigo Alonso, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Independent commissioner and curator of technological art, and professor at the University of Buenos Aires

Clare Davies, Cairo, Egypt
Associate curator at the Townhouse Gallery of contemporary art

Malik Gaines, Los Angeles, USA
Writer and performer who serves as an adjunct curator at LA