Electronic Cafe International (1989-2000):
Virtual Collaboration and Telepresence Before the Web
A screening and discussion with Kit Galloway — pioneer of telecommunication art.
Electronic Cafe International (1989-2000): Virtual Collaboration and Telepresence Before the Web
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Doors: 6:30PM
All Ages
Seated Screening
This event will be livestreamed. A livestream link will be emailed to ticket holders on the day of the event.
View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at [email protected] with any accommodation requests.
Artists Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz once envisioned telecommunication networks and information commons – what we now call videoconferencing and the World Wide Web – as a liberating force for communities, fostering creativity and open dialogue beyond the constraints of time and space. In a conversation inspired by the legacy of Electronic Cafe International, we will explore the evolution of telepresence (from the 1970s onwards) in connection to contemporary socio-political challenges, reflecting on the role of artivism in today’s world.
About the Screening
The routinization of telepresence has been an ever-increasing challenge since the COVID-19 pandemic. The pioneers of cyberspace believed absolutely in the transformative positive impact of telecommunication technologies. Users of the nascent “internet” would inevitably feel a greater sense of connection, unrestrained by time and space, and explore possibilities for collaborative creation and the exchange of diverse experiences in an open dialogue. The “information commons," as artists Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz (Mobile Image/Electronic Cafe International) imagined it, could become a space for freedom from governmental and corporate control – but only if artists, technologists, and community members tried hard enough to disprove the Orwellian prophecy. Electronic Cafe International, their visionary space at 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, was a sustained experiment in connecting communities in Los Angeles and all over the world from 1989 to 2000.
Yet here we are in 2025. Culture wars are on the rise, and virtual as well as physical space free from surveillance shrinks at the speed of light. Utopian thinking — the thinking that offered alternative futures and made space for critique of the status quo — is in deep crisis. Revisiting the legacy of Electronic Cafe International, we wonder: who are the Kit and Sherrie of our time? If their style of network-enabled “artivism” had survived into the 2020s, what would it look like? Should we become re-enchanted with telepresence? Would it offer any solution to socio-political polarization and othering? In our techno-dystopian times, fed with endless messages tuned to our "interests" by mechanisms of late-stage capitalism, we lose the space for creative, independent thinking. This screening and conversation with the pioneer of telecommunication art will attempt to open up such a space. Following a video presentation of 1990s tele-performances and cyberactivism at Electronic Cafe International, the audience will be invited to a conversation about the decay of utopian thinking in arts, and the possibility of its renewal.
About the Speakers
Kit Galloway
Kit Galloway (b. 1948) and Sherrie Rabinowitz (1950–2013), jointly known as Mobile Image, are early media visionaries who significantly shaped interactive practices that continue to evolve today. From 1975 to 1977, they launched a series of projects called Aesthetic Research in Telecommunications, including the Satellite Arts Project. This initiative explored telecollaborative arts and virtual performance, pioneering an aesthetic inquiry that investigated how performing arts could utilize technology to create new artistic contexts on a global scale. The Satellite Arts series redefined interactions among geographically separated artists in a dynamic and inclusive environment. In 1980, their Hole In Space project further revolutionized interactive communication for artists, influencing contemporary practitioners. The Electronic Cafe Network (1984; 1989-2000), housed at 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, aimed to integrate community, art, technology, multimedia telecommunications, and cross-cultural communication. In the 1990s, Electronic Cafe International, run by Kit and Sherrie, became a point of attraction for experimental musicians and performance artists interested in using means of telecommunication as a medium for their artworks.
Archives of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz were recently acquired by Stanford University Library.
Anastasia Chernysheva
Anastasia Chernysheva is a scholar and curator exploring topics of experimental music and biofeedback art. Recently, Anastasia gave invited lectures at the UCLA Department of Art (Art|Sci Center), UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and presented at the NIME2024 Colloquium. As a curator, she produced event series —ranging from music performances to science talks— at the University of Illinois, Santa Monica College, and Bergamot Station Art Center that were supported through grants from the Center for Advanced Study (CAS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Santa Monica Cultural Affairs. In October 2024 she started Biofeedback Art|Research Network — an international community of artists, researchers, and scholars pursuing work pertaining to biofeedback. Currently, Anastasia is a Visiting Researcher at UCLA Music Industry Program and a Research Fellow at Gray Area, where she continues to work on cultural initiatives, and investigate and write about the topic of her passion.
Partners
Rhizome
Rhizome champions born-digital art and culture through commissions, exhibitions, scholarship, and digital preservation. Founded by artist Mark Tribe as an email discussion list including some of the first artists to work online, Rhizome has played an integral role in the history of contemporary art engaged with digital technologies and the internet.
Since 2003, Rhizome has been an affiliate in residence at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a leading destination for new art and new ideas. Together, New Museum, Rhizome, and NEW INC, the first museum-led incubator founded by New Museum in 2014, explore the future of contemporary art and technology.
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