BERKELEY, CA.- The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) presents RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA, an exhibition that celebrates the cultural and artistic practice of remixing by inviting artists to reconfigure or re-imagine existing digital art works. The exhibition, which is the latest installment in BAM/PFA’s ongoing exploration of art and digital technology, will kick off on Friday, October 26 with Re-Mixer, a party featuring a live music mash-up and an art performance. In conjunction with the exhibition, BAM/PFA will also present a class on digital culture and new media, to be held on Thursday evenings, beginning October 25.

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA, which is curated by Digital Media Director and Adjunct Curator Richard Rinehart, can be seen online at bampfa.berkeley.edu and at the museum from October 24 through December 23, 2007.

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA takes as its starting point two digital works from the museum’s collection: Ken Goldberg’s Ouija 2000 and Valery Grancher’s 24h00 (both 1999). With permission from Goldberg and Grancher, four groundbreaking artists—Michael Joaquin Grey, Jonathon Keats, Alison Sant, and Nathaniel Wojtalik—were given the raw materials that make up the digital works—the code, data files, images, and sounds—and invited to rework them in any way they chose. The results range from literal remixes in which the artists alter or revise the original code, to more conceptual re-interpretations that incorporate the originals’ methods or behaviors into the new work. Ouija 2000 and 24h00 will each be exhibited along with the new, remixed works.

Some of RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA's pieces are of a physical nature—such as Jonathon Keats' installation piece, Ouija Vote 2008—while others reflect the more intangible and ephemeral nature of digital technology. Four of the pieces are Internet-based, including Goldberg's Ouija 2000 and Grey's 24h00 remix, True Nature.

Continuing in the spirit and ideal of the open-source movement, members of the public will also be invited to create their own remixes of Goldberg and Grancher’s originals. Space will be made available on BAM/PFA’s website, bampfa.berkeley.edu, for audiences to upload their work, allowing spectators to become further involved in the artistic process.

Many of the artists featured in the exhibition call the Bay Area home. Goldberg is a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Keats, a conceptual artist, and Sant, a video and new media artist with a strong interest in ecological issues, each live and work in San Francisco. A multimedia artist with a technological background, Grey splits his time between San Francisco and New York. Though he hails from France, Grancher is no stranger to the Bay Area: he produced the video piece 24h00 in collaboration with UC Berkeley students. Wojtalik—whose piece in the show, Smithereens, is an online video collaboration with Berlin-based artist Iris Piers—lives and works in Boulder, Colorado.

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA will include a wide array of public programs that explore the relationship between digital technology and artistic practice and exhibition. These include a live music mash-up and art performance, as well as a digital media class taught by the exhibition's curator, Richard Rinehart, and featuring the four artists commissioned to remix Goldberg's and Grancher's pieces.