A great deal of experimental media art is linear, or to use a video term, single-channel; you sit down to watch it from beginning to end, preferably in a darkened room with decent sound. However, many artists are now making their work with the gallery in mind, as institutional venues for single-channel media art are shifting from a festival/distributor circuit to a gallery/museum circuit.

In her talk, “Immersed in the single channel: Media art exhibition, distribution, and getting paid,” curator and art historian Laura Marks argues that economic reasons, not aesthetic concerns, are driving this shift. However, aesthetic issues of interest arise with regard to attention, distraction, and what could be called cognitive consumerism. It comes down to an issue of artists' rights: how can media artists exhibit their work and get paid for it? This talk will focus issues of distribution specific to media arts in the Arab world.

Laura U. Marks writes about and programs experimental cinema and media art. She is the author of The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media, Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art, and many essays. Currently she is working on a book called Experiments in Arab Cinema. Dr. Marks has curated programs for venues around the world. She teaches at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.