audart| The "Salute To
Broad Street" exhibition took place at a time when Broad Street, the
financial district's main thoroughfare, was in the midst of many
changes. The New York Information Technology Center, at 55 Broad
Street, was welcoming several new, cutting-edge tenants - primarily
dotcom companies, whose operations required fast access to the internet
and who embraced the prestige of occupying space in such a
state-of-the-art building. Other commercial buildings in the
neighbourhood, many of them historical, were being revamped and wired
for the internet. Cited as "towers of power", they offered T1 access to
their commercial and residential tenants. It was also a new dawn for artists, who had long been using the computer to make art, to gain further recognition for their medium. Based on Audart's strategic location at that time (1996), and in keeping with Audart's mandate to integrate art and technology, the concept for an exhibition of art by a number of New York's most prominent digital artists, seemed imminent. Twelve artists were chosen to take part in "Salute To Broad Street", including New York artists -- Barbara Nessim, Victor Acevedo and Ilene Astrahan, three highly respected pioneers of computer-based artmaking. |