A digital experience in Shanghai

The Shanghai eArts Festival, the city’s first international festival dedicated to digital art, was held between 19 October and 20 November 2007. And it was a festival designed to match the scale and grandeur of this vibrant city, where investment in cutting-edge digital technology can be seen on the streets through advertising screens and in the city's hippest areas. Set to become one of the highlights in Shanghai’s cultural calendar, the festival will take place every year until 2010, when the city will be hosting the World Expo "SHANGHAI 2010".

Based on the theme "Wisdom of Crowds”, this event is helping to create new cultural landscapes by establishing a genuine dialogue between Chinese and international artists in digital media.
Several major Chinese cities worked alongside Shanghai during the festival, with international partners also contributing digital creations, including MIT Media Lab from the USA, Ars Electronica from Austria and ZKM from Germany.

Thanks to the support of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation, VISUAL SYSTEM was able to offer "A Digital Experience" during the festival, an artistic project created by a group of young digital creators in collaboration with well-known animation schools in France - Gobelins and Supinfocom - as well as in China. The programme was divided into two modules: the first involved one month of on-site digital creation by Chinese and French digital creators, including Djeff Regottaz, Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation award winner in 2000, and the second was a chained animation project on the theme of Paris-Shanghai.

Through this initiative, the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation is strengthening its commitment to digital media, offering young creator grants and research support as well as promoting solidarity and access to digital culture.