By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
As 2009 comes to a close, preparations for next year's 6th Seoul International Media Art Biennale ``Media_City Seoul'' are already underway.
The event, one of the three major art biennials in Korea alongside the Gwangju Biennale and Busan Biennale, is aimed at engaging the city's residents with modern art works that are combined with innovative technology.
The past five editions of the biennale explored media and art within Seoul, but organizers of the 2010 Seoul Media Art Biennale hope to offer something fresh and relevant, despite a limited budget.
Set amid the backdrop of rapid changes in Seoul's landscape, the biennale is seen as a chance to explore these changes and the challenges and problems that arise from them.
``Ten years since the biennale first started in 2000, I am now faced with the dilemma of whether we should go on with the two names (Seoul International Media Art Biennale and Media-City Seoul) or rather, at this point in time, review them and define a new direction for the event,'' Kim Sun-jung, the biennale's artistic director, said.
In planning for the 6th biennale, Kim says the past editions should be carefully examined to draw lessons from them. ``Changes in our living environment and the problems that result from it are still to be found, but the 6th Media-City Seoul hopes to seek yet another path forward by linking the interest in city space with artistic autonomy and politics,'' she said.
Various ideas for the biennale, as well as developments in media art, were discussed in an international symposium ``Parallel Visions on Media Art'' attended by curators, art critics and theorists, Tuesday and Wednesday at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), downtown Seoul.