The MediaArts media lab operated in downtown St. Louis from 1999
through 2001. It was founded and curated by Paul Guzzardo. The
media lab was located in a windowed first floor corner in downtown
St. Louis. Housed in the lab was a changing inventory of computers,
photo imaging and editing equipment, projectors, screens and
monitor walls. Digital art was projected on screens and monitor
walls facing the street. Inside cameras looking out on the street
added an interactive component. As a form of public street theater,
it critically investigated the role of digital media on our culture
by using the producers and consumers of media interchangeably,
as actor and as audience.
The Lab’s topical subject-matter
included; meditations on film and digital editing, digital representation
of art/science practice, the effect of IT on social organization,
9/11, the millennium, comic books, and Orwellian media culture.
The lab as an experiment in recursive urbanism was an example
of an urban design prototype for tomorrow's “Digital City".
These collages and video files document the Lab’s varied
and eclectic work.
