Don Foresta

Don Foresta is a research artist and theoretician in art. He has pioneered the use of new technologies as creative tools with recent attention to online creation and archiving. His work Mondes Multiples, published in French in 1990, is recognized as a landmark in the fields of art and science and art and technology.^[1]

He has contributed to many publications on the interface between art and science and philosophical parallels between the two in a period of profound change. He has been a Visiting Research Associate at the London School of Economics and was a professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts - Paris/Cergy.

He is coordinating a permanent very high band-width network for artistic, educational and cultural experimentation. The Network, MARCEL, was begun while Foresta was an invited artist/professor in residence at the National Studio of Contemporary Art, Le Fresnoy, Lille, France. MARCEL is an ongoing work but the basic structure was completed and launched under a UK Arts & Humanities Research Council fellowship at the Wimbledon School of Art in London in 2001. MARCEL continues to expand and now has 250 confirmed members in 22 countries. many permanently connected over a multicasting platform sing the academic research network. The MARCEL web pages and network communications facility.

Foresta was the director of the American Cultural Center in Paris from 1971 to 1976. In 1976 he created the video art department of ENSAD (École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs) in Paris, the first such department in Europe. In 1981 Foresta organized his first online image exchange by telephone between the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and the American Center in Paris where he was director of the Media Art program. He was a commissioner to the 42nd Venice Biennial in 1986 building one of the first computer networks between artists.

A graduate of the University of Buffalo, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Foresta also holds a doctorate degree from the Sorbonne in Information Science. He is a dual citizen of the US and France and was named “Chevalier” of the Order of Arts and Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}

References

1. The Many Worlds of Art, Science and the New Technologies, LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No. 2, April, 1991
2. MONDES MULTIPLES, Don Foresta, co-edited by BàS & La FEMIS with the participation of the Ministry of Culture, Paris, France, 1991
3. Le Monde Diplomatique, Les Livres du Mois, Octobre 1993, No. 31
4. Artists Newsletter, September 2002
5. Art Monthly No. 244, March 2001
6. Sonovision No. 285, Septembre 1985
7. Telex, CENTERFOLD, Catalogue for the European presentation of the work of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., February, 1981
8. 42nd Venice Biennale, Art & Science, Catalogue